The Texas Department of Public Safety has six shallow-water boats, mostly to detect and deter smuggling operations on the Rio Grande and along the coast.

The Texas Department of Public Safety has six shallow-water boats, mostly to detect and deter smuggling operations on the Rio Grande and along the coast.

Photo: Courtesy Photo

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In this photo from May, border agents remove packages of drugs from a stolen pickup that had been detected and chased back to the Rio Grande, where the occupants ditched the truck in the water and swam to Mexico.

In this photo from May, border agents remove packages of drugs from a stolen pickup that had been detected and chased back to the Rio Grande, where the occupants ditched the truck in the water and swam to

The Coast Guard notified lawmakers at the end of 2011 that its activity on the Rio Grande was sufficient, although that became a topic of questioning at a congressional subcommittee hearing this summer.

The DPS launched its maritime patrol program in December 2011, and the last boat added last month.

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“They really have stepped it up by bringing a lot of those fast (DPS) boats in,” said Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, the ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security.

A CBP spokeswoman says the federal agency has increased its shifts and river patrols.

She wouldn't provide numbers for the increases but said the changes were sought by field commanders who saw a need, coinciding with a request from Texas lawmakers.

Legislators two years ago pushed the Coast Guard to conduct a study on the need for more assets along the Rio Grande, in light of increasing cartel drug violence and smuggling.

The study found only a moderate threat to Americans from cartel activity on the Rio Grande.

“The current mix of Coast Guard assets and personnel operating in the region is sufficient,” Cmdr. Bion Stewart, a Coast Guard congressional liaison officer, told Cuellar in a letter about the study.

In addition to the Coast Guard and CBP, Texas DPS has six shallow-water boats, mostly to detect and deter smuggling operations on the Rio Grande and along the Texas Coast.

Equipped with automatic weapons and night-vision capabilities, the boats can potentially be used on any navigable portion of the Rio Grande, said Tom Vinger, a DPS spokesman in Austin.

The Texas DPS boats cost about $580,000 each and were purchased through funds made available by the Texas Legislature and a Homeland Security Department grant.

CBP has 1,200 agents,270 aircraft and 280 marine vessels under the Office of Air and Marine, according to the agency's website.

CBP reported arresting 1,975 drug smugglers, seizing 831,849 pounds of contraband and apprehending 62,338 undocumented immigrants in fiscal year 20101, the last year for which figures were available.

CBP did not provide a breakout of arrests, seizures and apprehensions made by agents patrolling the Rio Grande.

Coast Guard officials say they perform duties along the Rio Grande, but mostly in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.

Most of the Coast Guard activity is concentrated from Boca Chica to the Los Ebanos Ferry, just north of McAllen.

Its agents were instrumental in breaking up an immigrant smuggling ring that used personal watercraft to transport undocumented immigrants across the river near Boca Chica Beach in 2009.

A study conducted by the Coast Guard on activity on the river above McAllen said resources were used for search and rescue efforts just nine times in the past four years — five cases on Lake Amistad near Del Rio and four cases on Falcon Lake below Laredo.

In addition, the report said a mix of Coast Guard assets with other federal, state and local law enforcement was effective in fighting drug trafficking and immigrant smuggling.

There are three Coast Guard H-65 helicopters and three jet aircraft for search and rescue operations, according to Ian Banks, a Coast Guard Operations Specialist 1st Class who coordinates those efforts from Naval Air Station Corpus Christi.